The MAGA Succession Begins in Florida

A striking detail from a recent focus group of Florida Republicans: one voter described Donald Trump as acting "like a spoiled toddler." Another graded him a C-minus. The war with Iran came up again and again, not as a point of pride but as a betrayal. "I seriously think he don't know how he's gonna get out of this," one participant said. These are the voters who backed Trump in 2024 and will vote in Florida's Republican primary for governor—a race that Will Sommer, author of the Bulwark's False Flag newsletter, argues is a preview of the coming struggle between the MAGA establishment and the ascendant America First wing of the party.

The Tucker Shadow Campaign

Sommer's central thesis is that Tucker Carlson is running a de facto presidential campaign without formally declaring. Over recent weeks, Carlson has been photographed meeting with disaffected Trump allies—Congressman Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, former counter-terror chief Joe Kent—in what amounts to a public display of coalition-building. Then came a speech on his show that Sommer describes as unmistakably presidential: a ten-point plan, declarations that "America must be optimistic," "America must be dignified, beautiful." Carlson didn't say he was running, but he didn't need to.